Hume was an empiricist that believed you can only learn things from personal experience. He was also a skeptic that tend to doubt things unless he had hardcore evidence. He also would talk to people (kinda like what Socrates would do) But instead of asking them disturbing questions he would instead just talk with them. Then he would figure out and ask if the subject that they were talking about had a meaning or not.That later came to develop a theory called Hume's fork. The theory said that if you are looking at any given bodies of ideas that when you are looking at it critically you must ask yourself two main questions. Question one: Do these ideas concern matters of fact, in which case do they rest on observation and experience. Question two: Do they concern relations between ideas or for example mathematics or logic? If the answer to both questions is no Hume said that those ideas could just be burned and thrown to the dogs and forgotten about because they contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. A big part of Hume's philosophy was cause and effect. Example:all reasonings concerning matters of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect, and that we can never infer the existence of one object from another, unless they be connected together, either mediately or immediately. Because he believed so much in cause and effect he was a determinist and he believed that everything happened for a reason. Hume also finished the empiricist movement started by Jon Locke about empiricism that went from 1690-1720.
Quotes from Hume
"A wise man portions his belief to the evidence".
"Beauty in things exist in the mind which contemplates them."
"The Corruption of the best things give rise to the worst."
"The rules of mortality are not the conclusion of our reason."
Biography
Hume made most of his best works when he was about Eighteen and he wrote a book between the ages of eighteen and twenty one called A treatise of human nature.At first nobody cared for the book or what it was about even Hume said it was " dead-born from the press. So then he decided to write two more books which he thought would be more popular but they were just as unpopular, the two books were called an enquiry concerning human understanding and an enquiry concerning the principles of morals. After the books were printed he seemed to turn away from philosophy for a while and wrote a book about the history of Great Britain and some know him as a historian and not a philosopher. For being a philosopher David Hume did a lot in between focusing on philosophy like he helped in the Austrian war of succession and was a secretary for the British embassy in Paris. David Hume was Born near Edinburgh Scotland. Lived from 1711-1776
Sources
A very short introduction to Hume by A.J. Ayer
Sophie's World
About Hume's Philosophy
Hume was an empiricist that believed you can only learn things from personal experience. He was also a skeptic that tend to doubt things unless he had hardcore evidence. He also would talk to people (kinda like what Socrates would do) But instead of asking them disturbing questions he would instead just talk with them. Then he would figure out and ask if the subject that they were talking about had a meaning or not.That later came to develop a theory called Hume's fork. The theory said that if you are looking at any given bodies of ideas that when you are looking at it critically you must ask yourself two main questions. Question one: Do these ideas concern matters of fact, in which case do they rest on observation and experience. Question two: Do they concern relations between ideas or for example mathematics or logic? If the answer to both questions is no Hume said that those ideas could just be burned and thrown to the dogs and forgotten about because they contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. A big part of Hume's philosophy was cause and effect. Example:all reasonings concerning matters of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect, and that we can never infer the existence of one object from another, unless they be connected together, either mediately or immediately. Because he believed so much in cause and effect he was a determinist and he believed that everything happened for a reason. Hume also finished the empiricist movement started by Jon Locke about empiricism that went from 1690-1720.
Quotes from Hume
"A wise man portions his belief to the evidence".
"Beauty in things exist in the mind which contemplates them."
"The Corruption of the best things give rise to the worst."
"The rules of mortality are not the conclusion of our reason."
Biography
Hume made most of his best works when he was about Eighteen and he wrote a book between the ages of eighteen and twenty one called A treatise of human nature.At first nobody cared for the book or what it was about even Hume said it was " dead-born from the press. So then he decided to write two more books which he thought would be more popular but they were just as unpopular, the two books were called an enquiry concerning human understanding and an enquiry concerning the principles of morals. After the books were printed he seemed to turn away from philosophy for a while and wrote a book about the history of Great Britain and some know him as a historian and not a philosopher. For being a philosopher David Hume did a lot in between focusing on philosophy like he helped in the Austrian war of succession and was a secretary for the British embassy in Paris. David Hume was Born near Edinburgh Scotland. Lived from 1711-1776
Sources
A very short introduction to Hume by A.J. Ayer
Sophie's World